Thursday, September 17, 2009

That leaves the unanswered question of: Did Levitz and/or DiDio know of the events that would leave Levitz with large amounts of free time or was Levitz planning on doing this along side his DC Presidential duties?

Newsarama's Legion Blogpost reflects on the Third Coming of Paul Levitz, and reminds us what happens sometimes when writers come back to the books they worked on years before:

While it’s true that Levitz wrote many great Legion stories, some fans worry about writers returning after lengthy periods away. Chris Claremont’s various returns to the X-Men seemed to get less successful over time, while Jim Shooter experienced a rocky return to the Legion in the recent past.

Its influence runs deep, in my opinion. Take a look at many of the event stories that have come sense, and I challenge you not to see echoes of patterns established by Levitz and Giffen. The Great Darkness manages to juggle character, action, and spectacle without sacrificing any of those qualities.

Tpull at FilmFodder looks at what Levitz's new position may mean for not only the Legion but also pretty much the whole comics industry from production to distribution.

If Levitz was contemplating doing some writing again, and Johns was going to be busy with the Flash reboot, and Levitz now had some free time to actually sit down and read some comics for a change and catch up on what ha been developing with some of his old character friends...

Voila! It's one of those things that make you think there really is a mysterious force moving things into place for you to recognize and take advantage. Levitz will take over Adventure Comics, and before too much longer, the Legion of Super-Heroes will overshadow Superboy, and possibly even push him out. That's what happened in their original title, so it's not like there isn't a precedent.

2 comments:

That's certainly possible, as we've seen other writers have that problem. But I wonder whether the industry has changed so much that Levitz may not be able to get his style to work. And I mean that both in the aesthetic and the practical sense: With the way DC keeps forcing company-wide storylines on its writers (I'm thinking now of McDuffie's complaints about trying to plan storyarcs for the JLA, which is admittedly a more difficult team to schedule than LSH), Levitz may not have the editorial freedom to develop the kinds of stories he's so famous for.

What do you think: Does DC provide enough long-term stability to its writers for Levitz to re-create his earlier style of writing? Or will he have to change gears entirely to keep up with all the crossover events that will come his way?

It's interesting that I've not yet found any comments on a more obvious element of what's likely to be driving Levitz's own situation (apart from the corporate boardroom shuffles):

He's worked for Time Warner and its predecessors for well over thirty years. He probably has immense amounts of stock by now, both in and out of his retirement plan. A departure agreement probably enriched him as well.

As a result, he may not even have to work at all, or very much. Stock dividends and sales may leave him free(r) to take the lesser paychecks of being a writer once again, in return for greater psychic and creative "income."

Don't rule out other comics-related entrepreneurial activities for him, either, probably after a non-compete period has expired. After all, he's only 51.